THE ENTOMOLOGISTS 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 209.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1860 [Price Id. 
TEN YEARS AGO. 
It sounds strange now, but ten years 
ago we had not bred a single species 
of the genus Neptieula, nor had we 
made personal acquaintance with any 
of the larvae of that genus. 
A letter written in October, 1850, 
recording the doings of a larva-hunter, 
makes no allusion to such things as 
leaves mined by larvae of Neplicula. 
This is an age of progress; why now 
we have hundreds of collectors who 
have bred their own Neptieula, and it 
is probably within the mark when we 
say that a hundred thousand speci- 
mens of this genus have been reared 
from the larvae, in England alone, 
during the last eight years. 
Many of our younger readers who 
had no personal knowledge of the state 
of Nepticulology ten years ago will 
have some difficulty in realizing to 
themselves the facts which we are 
staling. 
Each new discovery is so speedily 
assimilated by the advancing ranks 
of entomologists that its novelty is soon 
lost sight of, and in a few years it 
becomes almost impossible to realize 
that there was a time when this or 
that fact was unknown. 
The year 1852 was the great year 
for finding Neptieula larvae in this 
country, and comparatively few new 
larvae have been found by us since 
then. The first breaking up of new 
ground always yields the most pro- 
ductive crop, and it is not to be 
expected that one should continue to 
find novelties at a constantly increasing 
rate of discovery. 
When the modus operandi of a genus 
is once understood, it follows, from a 
simple process of the inductive faculties, 
that we examine each tree, shrub or 
plant for indications of such modus 
operandi; hence, looking on oak, elm, 
birch, beech, nnt, &c., leaves lor Nep- 
licula mines we speedily find them, 
and our list of British trees and shrubs 
is soon told ; we thus hurriedly quarry 
the mine and exhaust the richest vein 
at once ; then there follows only the 
more laborious process of working out 
the smaller and less profitable veins. 
This is what we are now doing in 
our researches for Neptieula larvae ; the 
search is now almost confiued to low 
B 
